We shall never ever never never ever never surrender

My unintended hiatus from blogging (if you must know, it was caused by ennui; I hope to write an inspirational book about the ordeal titled "Ennui: The Silent Killer") has prevented me from writing about The Times of London and its online archive of issues going back to 1785. This archive had been free for the last few months, but today it is going behind the paid-subscription-only curtain so I have to write this post ... fast!

Truthfully, the archive was great in theory but boring in practice. The classified ads from the 1890s looking for nannies all start to look the same after a while. Worse, the paper had no idea how to up-sell the historic value of what it was writing. Fr'instance:

Fig. 1: Issue dated June 5, 1940

First of all, way to go, Churchill. I credit this speech with delaying the Nazi invasion of England because I bet Hitler was all like, "Shit, they're gonna fight us in the fields and in the streets? That was like 90% of our secret strategy! Everybody back to the drawing board, and somebody hang a dude from my inner circle because I'm totally bummed about my fields-n-streets plan getting leaked," and by the time the Nazis had another plan it was too late and the Allies were giving Jerry a capital what-for.

The story appeared on page 3, column 6. It was above the fold, but it still seems like this speech could have been given more prominence. I don't know, maybe Churchill was pumping out wicked-ass speeches on a daily basis and by this point The Times had become tired of him, but more likely the press didn't feel any particular need to up the excitement levels because there was no competition from tv or the internet to sate the public's hunger for news. There was radio, but I don't know if they had all-news radio stations then. And when did the first "News, Traffic, and Weather" radio station start broadcasting? I have to imagine it was sometime after the war, because the traffic updates alone would give an immeasurable tactical advantage to the Nazis.

"Herr Kommandant! Traffic is backed up all along the Ratcliffe Highway, with delays up to 45 minutes! We must plan an alternate route for our invasion!"

"Forget about it, dummkopf; I just heard that the English will fight us in the streets, so our plan is fucked. Let's go back to the lodge and sing songs about the Alps while Hitler thinks of another plan."

Historically inaccurate laffs aside, the best part about the article is the last paragraph:

A great ovation was given to Mr. Churchill when he sat down. The House showed a dislike of any speeches following his, and passed to its apponted business.

This is known in journalism as "being a massive cocktease." What were the speeches following Churchill's? I have to know!

My guess is the speeches were mostly gloryhounds trying to ride the coattails of Churchill's speech. (Can hounds even ride coattails? Yes, if the coattails are long enough, duh.) I imagine the first one was something like this:

To add to what the Prime Minister was saying, I would like to make it clear that we shall fight in the alleys; we shall fight in the underpasses and on the overpasses; we shall fight in the causeways and the canals. We shall never surrender.

And there was much agreement and "pip pip" and "cheerio," and then the second one was something like:

We shall fight in the cheese shops; we shall fight in the haberdashers and the barber shops; we shall fight in the antiquarian book stores. We shall never surrender.

And there were still a "pip-pip" and a "cheerio" to be heard, but there wasn't as much enthusiasm. The grumbling really picked up when one guy chimed in with:

We shall fight in the front yards and in the back yards; we shall fight in the neighbors' yards, even that guy we don't like because he doesn't trim his hedges –

And that guy was shouted down and beaten about the face and neck because really, we have appointed business to get to. Stop wasting everyone's time!